Providing for Further Consideration of H.R. National Defense

Floor Speech

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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

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Mr. WESTERMAN. I rise in opposition to Neguse amendment No. 455.

This amendment would permanently ban mineral and energy development on over 1.2 million acres of public lands in northern Arizona and Colorado.

Not only will this amendment kill jobs in rural communities, but it will threaten our national security by making us more dependent on foreign adversaries like Russia. I can't believe we would consider adding this amendment when inflation is at 9.1 percent, a 40-year high; gas prices have been hovering over $5 per gallon; and one of our major adversaries invaded its free and sovereign neighbor.

This NDAA is meant to enhance our national security at a critical time in our Nation's history, not weaken it by taking critical minerals permanently off-line.

Instead, Democrats are adding this amendment in the dead of night, hoping that we wouldn't notice.

The Arizona component of this amendment permanently withdraws over 1 million acres from uranium mining. Currently, the domestic uranium industry is supplying less than 1 percent of the uranium needed to power the U.S. nuclear reactor fleet. Let me say that again. Less than 1 percent of what we need to power our fleet.

In 2019, roughly half of our uranium supply was sourced from countries that are hostile to the United States, including Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Chinese-owned mines in Namibia. Allies like Canada and Australia have slowly been accounting for less and less of this supply, dropping from 51 percent in 2017 to 39 percent in 2019.

Passing this mineral withdrawal will play into Putin's hands and weaken our mineral independence and national security. Proponents of this amendment will tell you that it is necessary to protect the Grand Canyon from destructive mining. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Nobody is mining in the Grand Canyon. Nobody wants to mine in the Grand Canyon. Nobody will mine in the Grand Canyon in the future-- never. There are already buffer zones in place, it is called the Grand Canyon National Park.

Unfortunately, this continues the disturbing trend--just today, technically yesterday at this point--committee Democrats passed a bill to permanently withdraw over 200,000 acres in northern Minnesota that constitutes 95 percent of our Nation's nuclear reserves, 88 percent of our cobalt, and 75 percent of our platinum reserves.

These are not the kind of policies we should be advancing, and I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I will strongly urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, which has no place in a bill that is supposed to bolster our national security, not harm it.

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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the DeGette amendment No. 456. This amendment would add the text of the so-called Protecting America's Wilderness and Public Lands Act which would actually damage our environment and kill jobs in rural America. By the way, I don't understand really what this bill has to do with defense and why it gets made in order for the NDAA.

This amendment creates nearly 1.5 million acres of new wilderness and designates over 1,200 miles of wild, scenic, and recreational rivers. For perspective, the wilderness designated in this bill is the same size as President Biden's home State of Delaware.

Just days ago we reached the ominous mark of over 5 million acres burned nationwide. This is double the 10-year average and nearly three times the amount of acres that were burned at this point last year.

One fire that has largely contributed to this total is the Hermits Peak Fire which is still burning in New Mexico as we debate here tonight. This fire, which is the largest in New Mexico's State history, has burned over 340,000 acres and racked up $278 million in fire suppression costs. This fire started in the Pecos Wilderness area which has not been properly managed and has significant fuel loads.

Instead of this being a wake-up call, congressional Democrats are trying to double down on the failed strategy of locking up lands and throwing away the key less than 100 miles from where the Hermits Peak fire is currently burning.

Creating new wilderness doesn't just mean catastrophic wildfires will be more likely. It means that these fires will also be more severe and put our brave wildland firefighters into harm's way. Many of these areas are too dangerous and burn too intensely to send firefighters in to fight.

In contrast, areas that have previously received treatments are often places identified by firefighters as areas they can enter to start attacking a fire safely. We have a problem in our national forests that is not going to be solved with handsaws and shovels. Now is not the time to rely on century-old management techniques stipulated by wilderness designations when over 80 million acres of Forest Service land is in desperate need of treatment.

If that weren't enough, this bill also designates land as wilderness in the wildland-urban interface.

This is a matter of life and death.
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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, there is a place and a time to debate wilderness and wild and scenic rivers, but I don't think the NDAA is the place for that.

In conclusion, I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment which will harm our environment and do nothing to improve our national security.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage a ``no'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

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